Briefly, in accordance with one aspect, a method of binarizing an image is provided. The method includes partitioning the image into a plurality of image segments, each image segment having a plurality of image pixels and partitioning each of the image segments into subsegments, each image subsegment having a plurality of image pixels. The method also includes estimating a grey membership parameter for each image pixel for each of the plurality of image segments and subsegments, combining the grey membership parameter for each of the plurality of image pixels from each of the plurality of image segments and subsegments to estimate a net grey membership parameter for each image pixel and assigning black or white color to each of the plurality of image pixels based on the estimated net grey membership parameter of the respective pixel.